It's Not Fair!
by Kerridwyn
Summary: 4yrs after Labyrinth.JS.If he can't force her back to the Labyrinth, nothing says that Jareth can't choose to spend time Aboveground time with a certain, stubborn mortal herself.If he could only get the coffeeclassescomputer skills down he'd be golden.
1. It's not Fair

(A/N) To whom it may concern; Kerridwyn's brain is temporarily out of order, and has in fact been hijacked by a contingent of plot-bunnies. So, rather than logically updating one of her existing stories, she has uploaded something-gasp-new!

**DISCLAIMER: Once upon a time there was a small girl who thought she owned the Henson characters, Labyrinth and all related icons…then the IRS came and took the small girl and shipped her off to a small prison on the far side of Antarctica. I am not that little girl.**

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Once upon a time…that's always how these things start isn't it? And it's the proper place for them to start; you know from the instant you here those three simple words-once upon a time-that you're about to be transported to a time and place different from your own. You know you're about to be taken someplace else.

So…

Once upon a time…

There was a young girl named Sarah Williams. She attended her local high school where she neither excelled nor failed dismally, she caused an average amount of mischief, and kept her room neither incredibly neat nor incredibly dirty. She lived with her Family in the same house she'd grown up in. Her room had been pained a lovely shade of pine green and the walls were plastered with the works of Brown, Galbreath and Froud and she took a deep satisfaction in that the window nearest the tree outside was securely locked at all times.

She had discovered over the years, that the argument of Nature verses Nurture very much applied to her younger brother Toby. His natural attitude was quite simply, that he wanted what he wanted and by god he wanted it _now!_ That was his Nature. He was raised by a doting father and over protective mother who could deny him nothing; that was his Nurture. Combine that with angelic blond curls, blue eyes and a pout that even Sarah secretly envied and he was a force to be reckoned with. If at times she darted between despising him and hovering protectively no one seemed to notice.

In fact, Sarah did her best to be entirely unnoticed whenever possible. Despite her love of literature and plays she abhorred being at the center of attention and sufficed to stay in the background.

She was often thought of as shy by her family and close friends-sometimes as cold by those who didn't know her better-but she had a glow of insight that clung to her like a fine dusting of ash and aged her beyond her years.

Sarah often saw things that most people overlooked, and she knew things that most didn't-or didn't care to. She knew who it was that stole the missing socks from the dryer and who it was that moved your keys when your back was turned. She knew why the milk spoiled a week before it should have and what it was that cats stared at when they seemed to be looking at nothing. There were precious few people who knew what she knew and they weren't likely to share the secret with anyone.

And so, in the background, she grew from fifteen to sixteen, sixteen to seventeen, to eighteen and nineteen. Her baby fat had redistributed itself in very attractive ways and, though the freckles stubbornly refused to fade, her skin had turned clear as milk and Karen often lamented-loudly, to anyone who would listen-about her stepdaughter's single status.

"I just don't understand it, sweetheart, you're so pretty, you could have anyone you wanted. You should be beating them off with a stick."

Whenever the conversation took this particular turn, Sarah would give the same shrug and sigh combination and steer it politely but firmly towards other things. She liked her status.

It was true, the boys at school took little notice of her, or if they did it was to keep as far away as possible, but Sarah had no intention of explaining to her that this was likely because a Certain Goblin King had threatened to have them drawn and quartered and roast their testicles with gravy if they so much as looked at her the wrong way.

Sarah barely surpressed an inappropriate giggle as she tried to picture Karen's face moments after such a revelation.

"Sarah-? Are you listening to me?" A little shiver made its way down her spine; no matter how many years passed, she knew she'd never get used to the way he said her name-or the reaction it caused. "You've not heard a single word I've said have you."

She turned and studied the reason for nearly everything that happened in her life for the past four years; Jareth, the Goblin King. He looked almost exactly as he had when he'd first came into her life, the same heeled boots, same gloves, same tousled hair, and the same fierce, wild features to sharp for any mortal face.

At that moment he was sprawled across her bed, she'd left her laptop there as well and a game of Tetris still played out on the screen unaware of it's impending doom. He prodded the keyboard experimentally, scowling when the words 'GAME OVER' flashed across the view in bold block letters.

"Are you quite certain this contraption is functional?"

She sighed.

This was, to put it bluntly, just not fair.

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(A/N) I've absolutely no idea where this is going…or where it came from for that matter. In fact, it seems to have jumped out from behind my couch and attached itself to my brain whist I was otherwise occupied…oh well. :


	2. Can't Taste a Thing

(A/N) So here's the next chappie…if anyone out there knows were the hell I'm going, please be so good as to let me know! Oo

DISCLAIMER: YES! I OWN IT ALL! It's mine, Mine, ALL MINE!!

DISCLAIMER TO THE ABOVE DISCLAIMER: I am lying….

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CHAPTER II - Can't Taste A Thing...

Sarah sighed, it really wasn't fair; did he have to be so damnably sexy? She pushed her mind away from that train of thought, if she got started she knew the chances of actually finishing her paper would be worse off than the soldier who'd let in the Trojan horse when his buddies caught up to him. Her traitorous brain was happy to supply her with various other suitable adjectives-attractive, hot, smashing-NO!  
_Bad Sarah!_ She gave herself a mental slap,_ Homework now, fun later!_

"You know, despite what it may look like, I do have a paper that I need to finish, along with a heaping mound of various other homework, work-work, and possibly even studying to do so I don't…oh, I dunno…fail-?"

He raised one sardonic brow.

"All of which you're distracting me from!"

He lounged back across the checker board coverlet, completely at home sprawled on her bed as he was sprawled on his own throne. The only flaw to the effect was that he was still a good foot taller than her, and half a foot too long for her bed, so that his boots hung out more that half way off the edge and gave him a decidedly cramped appearance.

He smirked at her, "Admit it, if it came to a choice between that paper and me, you'd pick distraction."

Sarah snorted, picking up a copy of Twelfth Night and chucking it squarely at his chest, "Admitting things to you is dangerous."

Just because he was dead on didn't mean she was going to tell _him_ that.

Jareth snorted right back, "So is climbing onto that overgrown monstrosity you and racing headlong over obstacles, yet you claim to enjoy it so…"

Sarah smiled despite herself at the mention of her baby; a nine year old Percheron Friesian cross affectionately named Beast-he'd been a bribe on her fathers' part to keep her from moving cross country to attend college.

"Yes, I do, and I'd be happy to share that with you just as soon as I finish this paper." She swiveled her chair back around so that her view of him was completely cut off. Out of sigh, out of mind…maybe…

She heard the squeak of her old box spring as he rolled over onto his stomach, "I thought you wanted to become an actress?" If she didn't know better she would have thought he was whining, "Surely that career would not have required such monumental, _intricately documented_ effort."

_So much for that paper…_

"I did, at the time."

"And now?"

"Somehow, after living one of those fairy tales I loved so much, acting them isn't quite the same. Unless I can make a living telling stories about a talking maze, inebriated goblins, and a guy with a thing for leather gloves and Escher art, this is all I've got."

Having discarded the notion of finishing her paper, Sarah slid her books and notes into what may have been orderly piles and replaced her pen in it's usual place. She rolled her shoulders and stretched, arms over head, until something popped and she felt marginally better.

A glance at her alarm clock; 2:37.

_Sleep would be good…_She looked over at Jareth, still regarding her with that unmoving, unnerving, unnatural stare, and still sprawled across a bed that was already several sizes too small for _her…coffee's good too._

Yawning she made her way across the room, avoiding the various piles of laundry that called out to be washed-yet another thing on a long, long list of things that needed doing-and paused in the door way.

"I'm going to make coffee, do you want some?"

He gave her a look to melt glaciers; Sarah was almost certain that he'd rather have a cup drawn straight from the bog of eternal stench. "I'll take that as a no. Tea, then?"

He sighed in a draw-out-long-suffering sort of way.

"Must you be so inherently difficult?"

In less time than it had taken Sarah to blink, a steaming mug had appeared on her desk. She could tell from that delicious smell alone that it was not only coffee but it was her favorite blend from Starbucks. (Too expensive to splurge on more than once or twice a month but dearly loved none the less.)

He hadn't moved.

He hadn't so much as blinked, but Sarah knew he'd done it-who else, after all? Even so she didn't bother to thank him. If she had he'd have shot it down with several sarcastically cutting remarks. That was just his way; he had explained once that among the Fae, everyone was expected to have magick and brains, and to put both to prompt use. Thanking someone for that very ability was tantamount to admitting surprise that they could manage such a thing on their own.

He still hadn't taken his eyes off her. His gaze followed as she walked slowly back to her desk and picked up the mug, pausing to savor the caramel hazelnut scent before taking a sip.

The slow, sweet burn of the liquid down her throat spread needed warmth to the rest of her body, reminding her that she would eventually need to pay the electric bill. Somehow, she never really figured out how, Jareth always managed to add just the right amount of cream and sugar to her drink. The only problem was a slight tingling aftertaste; not unpleasant exactly, just strange, like drinking carbonated coffee, which she had come to associate with magically constructed food.

"You can taste it," his voice was flat, "can't you."

It wasn't a question. She'd mentioned it once, and though he'd never explicitly said as much, Sarah knew he'd been trying to find away to eliminate the problem. It had to be a knife to his pride that something so simple as making coffee that tasted like normal-mortal-coffee could elude him.

"No," It was coffee. It was the coffee she liked. It was the coffee she liked; the coffee she looked forward to each week. This was the closest he'd let her come to 'thank you'.

She took another sip, "…can't taste a thing."

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(A/N) hope you like it so far. I'd give you more but my parental unit is screeching for the computer


End file.
